so attractive

hahaha

http://levgrossman.com/2010/05/writing-and-anti-depressants-a-match-made-in-purgatory/

thanks nick

no heat

Again the guy didn't come to fix my heater. I've been sleeping without a heater, with my window open for the past few weeks because it broke. He says he'll come tomorrow or the day after.

I slept 20 hours today. This med switch isn't working out. I'm still apathetic. I'll give it a few more days.

I had a strange strange dream just now. I dreamt of watermelons the size of boats, that I had in my room in LA. It was cut in half, and I remember tasting how juicy and crisp it was. I tried to wrap it with saran wrap and paper towels, so we could store it in the fridge. Then I turned on the TV but no matter how many times I tried to change the channel, the image was static of white worms on a red bulb. What were they, I asked someone to my left, they answered, "Ring worms"

Then I wanted to go away, and I thought about who I'd invite to go with me the next day on a trip to a far away place with black mountains and circling fog.

I asked Priya what she thought it meant. She asked if I woke up feeling thirsty, which I did, very very thirsty, hence the image of the watermelon. She said perhaps the image on the TV represented me feeling stuck on one thing, that no matter how much i tried to change the channel it wouldn't, and then we figured out this parasitic undertone, that there's something that's stuck with me that I can't get rid of. And I just want to run away to a far away place that is different from all the others I've been. But I dreamt of taking someone I knew, so it must be that I'm ready for a change of scene but I want to retain those that are in my life now.

Pompon

Nicholl and I headed over to the gallery for the opening in the marais.

Katie came and met me

Ran into Noa and Ana! Noa mentioned that Ana had just been nominated for a Cesar! Congrats Ana!
Jack

Then I went back to Ana's apartment which was a few blocks away. It was a gorgeous apartment.

Poopoo

Then Katie and Nicholl came and met us

Then we went to the Pompon in the 10th and met up with Jack and the other artists from the gallery opening. We danced a bit, then left, and Nicholl and I shared a cab back to our neighborhood. We were going to go to Carmen because Claudia and Connie's friend was djing that night, and then we were going to Chez Moune afterwards, but I got really really hungry and asked the cab driver in french where there was a deli that was open at this hour (2am) and he said no where at all. We then ended up speaking in Chinese. It was awkward. Then I somehow, I don't know how, found a place that delivered pizza at 2am in Paris which is nearly impossible and got pizza and chicken nuggets delivered. I ordered potatoes

But they gave me nuggets but I ate them anyway. They were gross. Then I vidchatted Nick and I told him to pick a movie that we'd watch in unison and he picked the human centipede which was not so great a choice for a girl who was scarfing down a pizza. Anyway, a few minutes in I passed out on Nick. I woke up this morning next to my pizza box in last night's make up, with Human Centipede still playing on my computer.

Then Nicholl and I tried to communicate with each other but my phone ran out of money and hers did too but she could still text meanwhile i couldn't respond! Eventually she told me to come over or call her from skype, so I went over and we went to get coffee at Le Fournis up the hill towards Montmartre. Now she's over and we are doing "work". Not really.

Weird day, cold night

Yesterday after Merce and the Muse with Carla, Will, Priya and Katie, Carla and I went to cinema des halles to see Potiche for our cinema class. It was awful. I have to write two papers on it, great.

Then I went home and had some champagne with Aurelle and her friends who are visiting from Prague and Florence. I decided to stay in for the night- I would have gone out but it was below freezing out. Had a flying dream, I love those and I have those often, dreams where I fly just as naturally as I lift my arm. Woke up at 6am, unable to go back to sleep due to stomach pains, but was able then to sleep until 10. Met up for brunch at Café Select with Nicholl, then we walked around our neighborhood, she showed me a cute street with wine stones and used books. We went to the vintage shop on Rue de Martyrs, then we went to Nicholl's house for a bit, and went to the candy store and now we're back at my place.

Tonight we're going to the gallery opening and then out, perhaps. It's so cold! I wish it were a bit less cold these last few weeks so I could explore more!

Thanksgiving

Last night we went to Café Bibliothèque in the 13th arrondissement for a Thanksgiving feast. Starter- pumpkin soup, Main- duck, cumin spiked mashed sweet potatos, peas & onions, dessert- a gingery cheesecake. Of course, bottles of wine were provided by our school. I wonder how much the dinner costed them, probably around 3000 since they rented out the entire restaurant.

Afterwards, although it was below freezing outside and I was only wearing a dress, tights, and a fur coat, we headed over to Republique and went to a cute bar Alimentation General. Big, dancey, good music. The minute I walked in this french girl came up to me and started touching me and asked me if I wanted a drink, and asked if I was a rockstar. I thought she asked me if I was lost, so I was like "NO!" and then she got the hint that I wasn't interested so she walked away. Then she came back again later.

This guy started talking to me and told me that he was a photographer for vogue and that he had a warehouse party next week for artists and he wanted me to go. He and his friends told me that my french was very good, I told them they were lying. They said no really, you don't have an accent. I said you're lying. After I got home he called me, sent me 3 texts telling me that I should go over to his house before the event and have drinks and that my friends were welcome to come with me.. Hm..

After 3 hours of sleep I woke up at 7 still drunk and went to meet Carla at Gare du Nord for Madrid. Unfortunately, the gate was changed and we were not notified, so we ended up missing our flight. It would have costed another 52 euros to change the flight to the next one, which departs at 9pm tonight. For me it wasn't worth it, because I would have had to leave on Sunday night anyway and would only have 1 day there. We also didn't book a hostel and the whole trip wasn't planned out well, and I also was vacillating between wanting to go and not wanting to go.

Thanks to my thinking seminar from last semester, I remembered sunk costs, and how even though I already spent money on the ticket, it is a sunk cost and should not be factored into my decision of going or not, because it's money that's already been spent and if I considered it, and thought that I should go to make sure I didn't waste the money, then I would be spending more money to justify spending the sunk cost, which doesn't make sense logically. Keeping that in mind, I decided it was best to stay in Paris.

Then, as we boarded the train, I saw Jack Greer walk in to the same car as us. I haven't seen Jack is over a year, probably. We've known each other since highschool in LA. He said "Holy sht!" when I said hello, it's such a small world! He told us he just got in because he has a gallery opening on Saturday in the marais and invited me to it. If this wasn't a sign reaffirming that I should stay in Paris this weekend, I don't know what is. The chances of getting in the same car, let alone the same train, at that very moment are so, so small. Man.

Anyway, now I'm home, showered, thank god. Going to Merce and the Muse soon to get some work done (I promised myself that since I stayed I would be SUPER productive since I would have had to pull all nighters next week for all my work if I went to Madrid and I didn't want to waste a weekend here) and then to the Pompidou library afterwards, and then tonight, who knows!

Happy Thanksgiving!

This Thanksgiving I am thankful for:

-Being able to call this mine, whether it refers to the time, this place, this experience, the people-- I mean it in way that it's all-dimensionally encompassing, this specific moment, chance, feeling, all of everything intersecting at this exact time in the exact dynamic that it is.

-Upward progression

-luck

-My family! Obviously

-New friends, old ones

-Nick

-Me, for getting myself to this point in my life, neurosis and all.

xx

MXL

S(ushi)SRI

Sushi just got delivered. I got a crab/cheese roll wrapped with mint, and some sort of california pink veggie roll peppers in it. Here in France they give you the choice of getting a teriyaki sauce or soy sauce, and this time I chose both. I found that the veggie roll tasted better with soy sauce and the mint roll tasted better with teriyaki sauce.

I drew dots on my fingers today in Film class.
I'm watching Harry Potter 6 because last night I went with Jacob to Harry Potter 7 part 1 midnight premiere in Paris. The auditorium seated 500 people, it had 3 levels of seats. French cinemas leave a lot of space between the front row and the actual screen, so it's fine even if you sit in the front. We ended up sitting in the way front. I noticed comparatively that French people are much more civilized when it comes to midnight premieres. No one was dressed up, and everyone was normal and not pushy at all and the theater was generally quiet. In America, midnight showings entail crazed fans dressed up, drunk, screaming and jeering and pushing. This was the best one so far, and despite the length of 2:35, it went by so fast. I felt that it could have benefited with some more detail, as some parts felt like they were barely skimmed over and could have been developed more, but I understand for the sake of everyone's attention span, it was better the way they did it.

Yesterday I saw my psychiatrist and she decided to switch me from celexa to lexapro because the celexa was making me lethargic, apathetic, and forgetful. I also noticed my anxiety coming back, although it never got into panic attack mode, I was still panicky. Celexa and lexapro are made from the same chemical, though lexapro has one molecule short of celexa but it's supposed to be more effective and less heavy on the side effects. Today I felt all sorts of weird, out of it, anxious, hungry... we'll see how this goes.

Today I had my brutal day of 7 hours straight of class. Text and Image wasn't a nightmare as I had anticipated, we just read our poems aloud and she critiqued them in front of everyone. She seemed to like my poem a lot, which was comforting. Convo was fine, then film was interesting because we discussed one of my favorite movies, Fat Girl, which I first saw in Sophomore year of college. We discussed feminist theory, especially Simone de Beauvoir, and also referenced Lacan. We talked about the idea of virginity and Breillat's view of it, how virginity is oppressive for females and to be a liberated female you must lose it (as Breillat's films are all about young females experimenting with sexuality without love). It tied into Lacanian theory because there is direct proof that a baby is a mother's since it physically comes out of the mother, but there is no physical proof to prove that it is the dad's, so the idea of a dad is actually symbolic. Virginity thus was a way to cement who was the actual father of a child, because there would be no other father if the girl was a virgin before. He gave us some statistics, that 20% of french women stay with their first lovers 5 years after, and that 75,000 women per year get raped and only 10% of those report it.

Anyway, back to watching Harry Potter.

I'm going to Madrid this weekend!

hsp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highly_sensitive_person

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introversion

tant pis

This morning I accidentally slept through my alarm so I was about 10 minutes late to class. Surprisingly I didn't feel as tired as I usually do. Then I finished my homework in the library, and saw that Connie had texted me and mentioned that we had a field trip, which I totally forgot about because we usually have field trips on wednesday for Text and Image. I was cutting it pretty close when I left school, especially since the commute takes 40 minutes since the meeting point was close to my house. So I ran back home, dropped off my computer, then took the 12 over to Abbesses. I made it at 12:32 and my teacher said in a condescending tone: "Oh you made it almost at the right time, good job". I was a bit confused why she was like that.

After 2 hours of standing in the cold and walking around Montmartre, the class ended. I was 40 minutes out of the way of school so I told Priya to please tell our Prof (whose class I had 15 minutes after Text and Image ended) that I was going to be late. I told our Text and Image professor that I didn't receive the assignment sheet in my mailbox, as I had checked it that morning specifically looking for it. She said dismissively "I put it in everyone's mailbox. I am sure of it. I don't know why you don't have it" as if I was lying about not having it. Connie even noticed and asked me how I was doing in the class because it would seem like I wasn't doing so well, and she mentioned that before I got there, they had told her that I was on my way and she said "Oh Maria, she's always late."

Which took me by surprise because I have been late to her class 1 time, and it was 5 minutes late, and that day 3 people were late and I only walked in 30 seconds after the girl in front of me yet the teacher gave me a DEATH GLARE that day and I asked the other girls and they said she didn't say anything or glare at them.

Meanwhile one of the guys is always late always late, and today he was much later than I was and she didn't say a single thing to him. I don't know why she's singled me out.

Anyway, that ruined my day because I kept thinking about it and it made me upset, I didn't understand why she was like that. I was 40 minutes late to my next class which was a double class and I hadn't eaten all day because I had been running around all day since 8am. We listened to a cool song. Then after class Priya and I wanted to get dinner so we walked around and every single restaurant was closed. So finally we found sushi after walking about half an hour in the freezing cold aimlessly. I felt really anxious. Then when I took the train home it stopped a few times, and I felt like I was on the cusp of having an anxiety attack. Then on my way home this old man tried to hug me and kiss me randomly which scared the crap out of me. I miss New York today.

Strasbourg

Friday morning, 6am, Carla came to my door and woke me up. I decided to suck it up and get up. We met at the train station at 6:20 and took the train from Gare de l'Est to Strasbourg (2.5 hrs)

We went to a hotel for breakfast
Then we visited the Parliament
Where the ceilings were covered with mirrored waves to reflect the sound so the whole auditorium which fits about 1000 people can hear what is being discussed below

Then we had an hour to explore and have lunch
We went to a cute restaurant

and got soup and I got a gingerale. The others got cider.

Jim's salad, us attacking it and picking out the cheese.

Then we went to a brewery and learned how to make beer. Water, hops, malt, and yeast are essential, as we learned.
Passing around the malt and eating it
Passing the hops

Then we walked into the basement and saw all the old advertisements

and after a weird video we beer tasted
I tried Guiness and this fruity strawberry beer which tasted like juice bug hit me quite hard.
A few of my friends had consumed weed cookies/brownies during the day so they were DYING at this point and looked so, so gone. Some later told me they were having a horrible trip, that they thought they were in a bad video game.

At night we toured the church

This beautiful clock not only told time, but it also told you how the moon looked that night, where the planets were aligned and what houses they were in, and each hour, death, youth, adolescence, old age, would come out and ring a bell while cherubs twirled an hour glass and a little bell down below. The clock was not powered by electricity, but rather, someone who pulled ropes every week.

Indeed the moon was exactly how the clock predicted
Dinner! Salad, Fish in riesling sauce and ice cream

We stayed overnight in a cute little hotel. Nassim and I roomed together in the azur room, we lucked out and got 2 beds while some people (Will & Andy) (Iris & Jim) had to share beds in honeymoon suites.

We drove out of Strasbourg

And toured a Château

and saw a dragon

Then we got dropped off and explored for 3 hours on our own...

We got quiches and salads, and for dessert, Katie got sorbet in liquor, and I got

A mint chocolate chip ice cream sundae
Then we got vin chaud and walked around until we found this little guy
macaroons!

Kitty

And then we went to the winery and learned about wines
And finished off with a tasting.